A FOOTBALLER denied raping a teenager after she accused him of making a late night "booty call", a court heard.

Blackpool striker Beryly Lubala denied attacking the 18-year-old after she drove to his house in Horsham to watch Netflix.

The player joined Crawley Town FC in June 2019 and they had met twice before and had sex each time, said Richard Hearnden, prosecuting.

She agreed to go to his home in Horsham and arrived on the evening of Friday, September 13, 2019.

"You expected her to have sex with you and when she said no you forced her," he told the player.

Lubala said: "I disagree.

"I didn't expect sex the first time.

"The second time, I didn't think she was going to stay.

"I never talked to her about sex."

Mr Hearnden told the player: "What was going through your mind was she's coming round and she's going to have sex with me tonight just like the last time."

"No, I didn't think any of that," Lubala replied.

Earlier, the woman said she froze when the player kissed her and started to remove her clothes.

He pulled her hair and told her to be quiet, she told the jury at Brighton Crown Court.

When the player returned from the bathroom, she told him she received a text message and had to leave.

On her way home she recorded two harrowing voice notes for a friend.

They were played to the striker as he was cross examined on his second day in the witness box.

Her mother, sitting in the public gallery, covered her ears as the teenager was heard sobbing into her phone.

In two voice notes, she described being attacked by the player.

Mr Hearnden asked the player: "Do you have an idea how she got in that state?"

Lubala said: "I'm devastated to hear her like that. When we were together she was fine.

"I've never made any human feel like that. The person she's talking about is not me. It's a complete lie."

The jury has been shown a Snapchat selfie taken by the woman, now 20, in his bedroom which the player said was taken while he was in the bathroom after they had sex.

Mr Hearnden told him: "You say it's relevant because she doesn't look upset. She doesn't look like someone who has just been raped, does she?"

The player said: "No one has been raped in that photograph."

"I agree, because she took it before you and she had sex," Mr Hearnden said.

The player said the selfie could only have been taken when he was out of the room, after they had sex.

"While you were in the bathroom, she's done her hair, posed and put the lights on and taken the photo?" asked Mr Hearnden.

"The time I was with her, the lights were off," Lubala replied.

Mr Hearnden accused him of changing his story to say the lights were off.

"I'm not here inventing things," the player said.

Mr Hearnden accused him of lying to the court, saying: "The reason you can't remember is your recollection is fairly limited and you have added in details such as lights being off. You have lied to this jury."

"That's completely false," the player replied.

The court heard Lubala was transferred to Blackpool in August 2020 and has not played football for more than a year.

He was suspended on full pay as soon as the club found out he had been charged with rape in December 2020.

The Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) represented him when the club tried to terminate his contract.

Jurors heard the player's Congolese father brought his family to the UK when he was three and they settled in Leicester.

Lubala denies rape.

The trial continues.

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